May 27, 2005

Who Has the Work? He Who Finds the Busboys

By ANTHONY DePALMA

Dinos Kazanis feeds the job hopefuls, many of them illegal immigrants, as they wait for restaurants to phone in.

Angel Franco/The New York Times

A daily ritual at the Atlas Employment Agency in Chelsea: hanging around for lunch while waiting for a job.

The dingy office on the fourth floor of an old Chelsea building is where the ghosts come to find work.

They are ghosts because they do not exist here in the city, not legally. Most have just come from the southern part of Mexico without visas, green cards or any other official document that proves their existence.

But even ghosts need to eat, and when they ask on the street "Who has work?" the answer many hear is Mr. Dinos.

Dinos Kazanis is a strange ally. He does not speak more than a few words of broken Spanish. His English echoes with bass notes of Greek. When he shouts, it is hard to tell what language he is using, and he shouts all the time. He is rude. "I don't have job," he thunders into the phone. "Why are you calling me now?"

But the ghosts keep coming.

Since 1986, shortly after he came to New York from Greece, he has run his own employment agency, helping the Greeks, who still own many of the city's diners and coffee shops, hire the busboys, dishwashers and waiters that keep their businesses going.

In a complex, constantly changing city, niche businesses keep things humming. Fifteen years ago Mr. Kazanis sent men from Bangladesh and China to fill the back-of-the-house positions in restaurant kitchens. But the population of Mexicans in the city tripled during the 1990's, making Mexicans one of the fastest-growing groups in New York. Now he specializes almost exclusively in sending Mexican workers to Greek restaurants and diners.

"They are very good quality workers," Mr. Kazanis says one morning, his words a drumbeat of Old World vowels and New World weariness. "If these illegals leave New York City, New York will die. I know."

Most of the workers he sends for jobs are thin young men with shallow cheeks and dark eyes who have come illegally from the parts of Mexico that have not benefited from that country's deepening economic ties with the United States.

Every weekday morning they come to Mr. Kazanis's Atlas Employment Agency - everybody calls it Mr. Dinos' - as soon as he opens at 7 a.m.

The office's windows are dim with dirt. The carpet is threadbare, the gray metal desks are banged up and the walls are covered with as much grime as paint. Behind him are three American flags and a small poster proclaiming, "Proud to be an American."

He became a citizen a few years ago and now Mr. Kazanis, 66, is often the only American in the office. The Mexican job seekers sit in two rows of dirty plastic chairs, with a blurry television tuned to Spanish-language soap operas. Mr. Kazanis says experienced cooks are picked right away. But most who come here have no skills, so they wait.

At 11:15, he takes a call from the frantic owner who has just realized that with lunch about to begin, he is short one busboy. Holding the phone with his shoulder, Mr. Kazanis looks out over the dozen young men who have been waiting to be called.

"Busboy," he shouts. "Rapido."

From the second row, back near the wall, a young man with a backpack stands up.

"Trabajo," Mr. Kazanis says - "work" - after the man has come to stand by his battered desk as sheepishly as if he had been called to the principal's office. "Start at 12 o'clock. You leave at 11:30."

The young man, who says his name is Rodolfo, came less than a year ago from the state of Puebla, the starting point for the uncertain voyages of many other Mexicans in New York. He had been working at another Greek diner but he wanted a different schedule, and he was confident Mr. Kazanis would find something for him.

It is a pattern followed by many Mexicans in the city who bounce from job to job. Little changes - not salary, nor hours, nor working conditions nor, for many, the chances of getting ahead.

"The vast majority of them never experience any promotion or job seniority," says Saru Jayaraman, executive director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, a labor rights group. "Most never move up at all."

Then it is back to business. "I tell you, they pay more than minimum. Six days, 12:30 to 10. Saturday off. Sunday 3 to 12." A 50-hour week, for which he will make $500, without health benefits.

"If you have any problems call me," Mr. Kazanis says. "The owner is my friend. I help this guy too many times. When you get there, see Mr. Nick. How you get there? Take the train, No. 6, uptown. You pay now."

"How much?" Rodolfo asks, though he knows the fee is $100, half in advance, and the remainder due after the first paycheck.

"For you, $1,000."

Rodolfo takes two twenties and a ten from a small roll of bills in his pocket and leaves.

Mr. Kazanis looks at the application card he filled out. Except for his first name and a cellphone number, Rodolfo has left the card blank.

"You believe they tell me the truth over here? They don't have ID. There's no way to check. I have too many guys with the same last name."

He knows they are illegal. The owners who hire them know they are illegal. Immigration officials know where to find them. But they rarely try. There are more than 200,000 Mexicans in New York, according to city officials, and most are illegal. They are the poorest immigrants, but they also have about the lowest unemployment rate, in part because New York businesses need them.

The perpetual cycle of job seekers brings in a steady income, but no great fortune. There is something else that motivates Mr. Kazanis, something called empathy, a word with good Greek roots. He wants to help them because their struggles are familiar.

"The Italians, the Greeks, the Polish, they were all illegals," Mr. Kazanis says. "It's the same story now."

It is 11:45 a.m. by the time he puts down the graying Rolodex cards with the names of diners and their owners. He calls over one of the Mexicans waiting in his office and hands him $25.

"Wendy's. Rapido," he says.

It is a daily ritual, followed religiously. A hamburger for each man still waiting for work, and one for Mr. Kazanis, too. Later, he will pass through the rows of chairs with a two-liter bottle of soda and a sleeve of plastic cups. He insists it is not charity, but a business tool.

"I have to give them food," he says. "If I don't and they go out to eat, I don't have anybody to send to anybody if they call." But he knows few calls come in the afternoon.

The men eat in silence. Some hold on to their burgers, waiting for the darkness of night when there may be nothing else to eat. Mr. Kazanis never charges for the food, nor does he object to the men spending the whole day in his office.

"O.K., Dinos," one of the Mexicans says from across the room after he has finished his burger. "Now I want to work."

Mr. Kazanis looks through his cards, takes a heavy breath and picks up his ringing phone.